"Cold in here, isn’t it?" I remarked, but the waitress only frowned, raising one hand unconsciously to a mole on her neck.

"You ready to order?" she asked. She was wearing a white sweater over her pink, nylon uniform.

"Cold," I repeated and then, as though I had torn the admission from her, she said, "Yeah, I guess it is."

I stared very hard at her then, taking in the even rise and fall of her breathing beneath partially buttoned cable knit. Her cheeks were flushed a little and she wasn’t wearing any makeup.

"You ready –?"

"Right," I told her, not quite able to manage a grin. "Bring me a cup of ‘satz, will you? And a sandwich."

"Okay. We got that yeast stuff, you know. Chicken or beef. Or peanut butter."

"Chicken," I said hastily, hoping that would be the most edible. "And milk for the ‘satz if you’ve got it."

"Only soya. No more animal milk. There’s this new rule about serving cow milk – strontium 90 and all that."

I nodded and watched her disappear through the swinging doors before turning my attention to my fellow diners. Lunch hour was over and most of the tables were empty, set with tired-looking place mats and napkin dispensers.

Near the door, three workmen argued loudly and almost cheerfully as they polished off their synthosteaks and fries, pausing only to grimace as they washed everything down with ‘satz. They were obviously okay.

No, what I sought would most likely be in the back – probably one of the family. Behind the kitchen with its cellar door, would be an apartment for the owner and his family. I was sure I would find the caz in there. Our tip had said a small amount of serum – very small. A child maybe, or an adult who barely had enough to come around. That might account for the lack of heating in the place.

I was waiting for my partner. I had told them to send Eidson here as soon as they had him up. He was the one who could tell for sure about the serum – and the caz. He should know, the poor bastard. I glanced at my watch and once more around the room.

Eidson and my ‘satz arrived simultaneously. The waitress gave a little gasp when she saw him and dropped the plate with my sandwich on it. It clattered onto the table, teetering on one edge until I steadied things with one hand.

Everything was in the open now. Eidson wore the mandatory grey uniform and purple armband of an authorised caz, though at first glance he might have passed for okay. He watched the girl in his flat way until she backed off, forgetting to set down my cup.

I fished about in my jacket and handed her my card. "Inspection, Miss," I said, rising. "I’m afraid we’ve had a tip." I almost added, "Sorry" but then didn’t. This was one of those times when I hated my job. But it was my job and I did it.

"Not here," she said and all the color went out of her face. Her hair was light auburn and she was young and I hoped – almost prayed – that she was not one of the family. "We don’t," she stammered, "How did you –? I mean, really we don’t have one of those things here!" Her voice rose a little at the last.

"Then you won’t mind if we look around," I told her firmly, using my professional voice. From the corner of my eye, I could see the workmen glaring at me and an old lady who had just come in paused, looking for something in her purse before she went out again without sitting down. I wondered if she, too, had something to hide – if everyone did. I almost cracked a smile at the absurdity of arresting the entire human race. Two younger women who had just sat down rose and left.

The waitress turned her back on us and spread out her arms – still balancing my cup of ‘satz in one hand – as though she would bar our passage. Then her shoulders slumped pitifully and we followed her into the kitchen where the cook eyed us with abrupt and silent hatred. I nodded curtly in his direction. He was a big man, though one leg seemed to be shorter than the other, and he had within reach a formidable array of potential weapons. I kept an eye on him.

"The proprietor," I said to the room at large, "is a Mr. Bentley, I believe?" I eased one hand beneath my coat to the shoulder holster. Eidson flanked me, but he was, by law, unarmed.

"He isn’t here," a greying but still youngish woman said tiredly as she rose from behind a stack of cans. "I am Elaine Bentley. May I help you with something?" She was biting her lip and she had dark circles beneath her eyes. Maybe, I thought.

But no. Her breathing was normal. Just to be sure, I took one wrist in my hand and felt her flinch back, startled. The cook moved uncertainly toward us. But Mrs. Bentley had a pulse and so I let her go.

"What is this, Mr., ah –?" But her eyes, greeny grey behind taped glasses, told me she knew already. Eidson’s presence would have been enough.

"Captain, ma’am," I said. "Captain Harris. And this is Agent Eidson."

The cook growled while Mrs. Bentley shuddered visibly and drew her gaze away from my partner. Then, seeming to regain her composure, she stepped back. "And may I ask what brings you here, Captain?" Again, those betraying eyes.

"Tip from a dealer we took in last week," I told her, keeping the cook in sight. "He gave out names under the Fairwood-Calder Act."

"He was lying," she snapped. "Took you in to save his skin." The Fairwood-Calder Act allows for moderate torture in serum cases – and quite right, too. Damn the pushers. "He was lying," she repeated.

"We allow for falsehood," I told her, "and no one is accusing you of anything – yet." I turned to Eidson. "Well?"

"It’s here, sir," he said in his hoarse, toneless voice. "Not strong, but it’s the Bell serum." And Eidson would know. He had senses that only a caz, for some reason known only to the inventor of the damned stuff, would have. Of course Eidson was addicted to Bell serum himself.

"You thing!" the woman spat suddenly, looking directly at Eidson for the first time. "You dead thing! You zombie! How can you deny life to others when you –"

"I’m sorry, Mrs. Bentley," I cut in, "but you will have to consider yourself under detention."

Eidson hit me suddenly from the side and I went down against a flour barrel, barely missing the edge of a counter. Mrs. Bentley screamed as, with a loud crash, the cans went over and I saw Eidson wrestling with the cook. Before I could draw my gun, something snapped in the cook’s arm and the cleaver fell with a dull splang! to skitter across the concrete floor.

The cook groaned and his face turned a pasty color. The auburn waitress kind of gagged, cramming her hands into her mouth. We all stared at the cook’s wrist, bent now at an odd angle and purpling where Eidson had gripped him.

"Oh my God!" Mrs. Bentley moaned, but she was looking at Eidson. I followed her gaze and saw that his throat had been partially slashed – though it didn’t bleed, of course. We watched in helpless fascination as he fashioned a sort of neckerchief from a dishtowel to cover the wound. There was an unbearable pathos in that simple gesture, as though it was our feelings that he would spare. For a moment, I felt my professional dignity slipping.

"Oh my God," Mrs. Bentley said again, dully.

"Who?" I asked her then, businesslike once more. "And where?"

"My daughter," she said in sudden collapse. "Twelve years old. Leukemia – like all the others. Like all the children these days."

I nodded. It was a familiar story and raised a few painful memories of my own. I hoped the authority wouldn’t be too hard on the girl’s parents. So many died that you couldn’t blame people for turning to the pushers for serum. I asked again, more gently, "Where?"

"We couldn’t get enough," she babbled now that her dam had broken. "Never enough even though we borrowed and borrowed. Not like the authority has. Not like you give him." She jerked a thumb in Eidson’s direction, her hands raised before her, half beseeching and half threatening. "We could only wake her for an hour or so each day and then we had to be so careful –"

"Where?"

"The – the walk-in. We have to keep her cool."

I nodded to Eidson. "Check," I said and he did.

"But why?" Mrs. Bentley cried, turning those naked eyes on me. "Why do you give life to those you choose and deny it to the innocent? Hasn’t there been enough death and loss and misery? Can’t you give our children their lives?"

"It isn’t life, Mrs. Bentley," Eidson said suddenly, turning back from the walk-in. His voice shocked us both – as though a piece of furniture had spoken. "They don’t grow. They don’t play. Look at her face," he said and indicated the still form which slept there among the cabbages and the margarine tins and the boxes of flavored yeast cakes. "Look at my face."

And for a moment, beneath the pitiless fluorescents, I saw my partner as he really was – a corpse. Eidson was a walking dead man who went through the motions of a life he could never regain. He was a caz – a war casualty. His limp hair was brown and it would never turn grey, would never thin and recede. His dull eyes were grey and his hands were hard and dry. He walked stiffly because of a broken leg which had ben wired and never healed because he was dead. Only the serum kept him going – that and the wire and plastic used to mend up any injuries he sustained. I knew for a fact that there was a bullet lodged in his heart. Colonel Finch had told me it could stay there since it didn’t interfere with his work.

And now, I realised, Eidson’s throat injury would be sewn up too, when we reported in, and he would be returned to storage just like the Bentley girl until we needed him again. I wondered, suddenly, if he dreamed when he slept and what sort of dreams the dead were likely to have. I had heard that the serum had to be injected directly into his spine, and that he could feel pain when it was. Sometimes, Colonel Finch told me, the caz convulsed when they were given the serum. And eventually, if you didn’t keep them cold enough, they started to decompose until the serum wouldn’t work anymore.

Abruptly a question rose up in me – a question I tried and failed to swallow down. I stared desperately from Eidson to Mrs. Bentley, knowing I would speak whether I would nor not. "Why, then?" I asked, still fighting to bite off the words as they came out. "Why do you accept the serum, Eidson? Why do you agree to work for us? Are you – afraid?" Of the dark, I meant – of never waking up again. I hated myself when I said what I said and I could not look at him for shame.

"Afraid?" Eidson repeated wonderingly. "Afraid of peace? Of rest?" His voice had hoarsened even more and now he made a horrible sound that I recognised as laughter. "No," he said, "I am not afraid."

"Why, then?" I whispered, terrified at last, not of what he could do but of what he was. I stared at my own hands, flexed the fingers, and thought of the incredible frailty of my own flesh. How easy it must be, this transition from life to death!

Mrs. Bentley stood with her own hands clenched together across her apron, her lips slightly parted as though she had been hungry for my words and his. Poor woman, she was too lost in her own grief to be afraid.

"Duty," Eidson said, his eyes boring into mine. "Isn’t that what keeps you going? Don’t you know that you and all of the so-called living are casualties too? Don’t you know that you are dead already, even though you go on breathing?"

I looked up, startled, and saw that he was smiling sadly at me. "I was a soldier," he said, "and I was shot in the heart. Once. You see, with a clean wound like that, I was an excellent candidate for further duty."

And he just stood there in his still way, stood there with one hand at his throat and the other hanging limply at one side, and told me what I must have known already. What all of us knew. On the floor, the cook sat cradling his arm and made small whimpering noises as though he had lost his mind. I’m afraid none of us paid much attention to him.

"I volunteered, you know," Eidson rasped suddenly. "They gave me a choice when I was revived that first time."

"I didn’t know that," I said inadequately, feeling like a damned soul waiting for the endless torment to begin. "Did – Wouldn’t anyone, though? Volunteer? It would be –" Here I almost let out a laugh of my own. I had almost said suicide. It would be suicide not to –

"No, Captain," he said and this time I did hear pity in his voice. That he would pity me!

"There are things worse than death," he said as though explaining to a child – and, like a good child, I could only nod agreement. There were things worse than death.

Mrs. Bentley brushed by me and fled into the cooler where I found her cradling the still, wasted form of her child. I believed she was saying goodbye and, bruised as I was with what Eidson had said, I ventured to lay one hand on her shaking shoulder. Maybe I needed to reassure myself that I was not the only living soul in the kitchen.

"Eidson," I said without turning, invoking the habit of command for a shield. "Call an ambulance."

"Yes sir," he said while I remained where I was. There were a hundred things I could have said to him as we waited together in that bright morgue of a kitchen. Words crowded within me but I knew that I could utter none of them until our time was finished and the last day had come when Eidson and I would be equals.

But for now, I would rather have sunk into the earth than to have met my partner’s eyes.